‘We Come 1’ I think turned out to be Faithless’ biggest hit (joint biggest hit in fact with the re-released ‘Insomnia’ – Wiki Ed), when it scaled the dizzy heights of the Top 3 when it was first released. It is one of those tracks that when it was released would have words like ‘euphoric’ ‘floor filling’ and ‘epic club anthem’ attached to its reviews.

The original is a twisty techno blast – pretty much what you would expect from Faithless – but still you know, pretty great.

It came alongside a bunch of remixes. The Wookie one, that the random track generator has selected today, sees the track take a distinctly garage turn, which is not surprising given that Wookie is a garage DJ and musician. His real name is Jason, just in case anyone was interested.

The second Danish act to feature on here (but not the last), sees them go joint top of the ‘Greatest European Country for Music’ Table – which we have firstly just invented, secondly, have no intention of monitoring and thirdly, kind of wish we hadn’t just invented.

Iceage are a punk rock band from Copenhagen who formed in 2008 when they were just seventeen (yeah – so when the Aphex Twin was 9 he farted into a bottle and recorded the smell – TB). Three years later their debut album ‘New Brigade’ was released and the world sat up at took notice. They sat up because it was outstanding, a little raw perhaps but outstanding all the same. The track below is an example of the brilliantly blunt punk rock on offer.

The world continued to sit up and take notice on the release of their second album ‘You’re Nothing’ from which today’s lead track is taken. The second was again outstanding and a little less raw, and also contained punk rock sung in Danish, which is always a good thing.

By the release of album three ‘Plowing Into The Field Of Love’ the band had moved on from their punk rocks to a more melodic sound more akin to early Libertines. Yet it was still outstanding and again contained the odd track in Danish.

After the release of their third album Iceage’s singer Elias Bender Ronnenfelt (which is clearly the most remarkable name in rock) formed a solo project called Marching Church and has since released two further albums, whereas Iceage have vanished totally, their website rarely gets updated, and there has been no gigs of note that I can find.

James were for years my favourite band. ‘Gold Mother’ remains to this day one of my favourite records of all time. They could in my opinion do very little wrong. That was of course until they released ‘Seven’ a frankly terrible album that should have never have been recorded. I remember seeing James on Top Of The Pops when ‘Sound’ was in the Top Twenty. It was the same show that Nirvana played ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and caused a mini stage invasion. James followed Nirvana and like Chapterhouse at Reading in 1991, no one really cared for them any more.

So I was sceptical when ‘Laid’ appeared and I was cautious when I purchased the single (still bought on the day of release though) and I wasn’t that excited when I stuck it in the CD Player. It was like I was buying the single out of loyalty.

It was when I heard ‘The Lake’ that I was reminded of all the reasons why I’d loved James in the first place. Everything about this track is wonderful from Booth’s frankly remarkably, singing, through the lyrics about stealing moons and oars dipping into the water, to the simple effective music behind it which is barely there, everything.

Another day, another track or band that I have no idea about, although I will say that there is a chap who lives near me and Dom who wears a ‘Gumball’ T Shirt – he has a beard and wears brightly coloured trousers, so I avoid him. I’ll tell you what I think of Gumball at the end.

So you join me this week on a plane and for JC’s sake who, bless him, has had some trouble keeping up, it is late in 2014, not, you know, right now. Anyway, I am on a plane and have been for some ten hours. I have flown to the United States, on my own and feel very grown up and adult about it. I have had a fairly good seat, by the window and have been sat talking to a very nice American lady who has been in the UK for a wedding and is now returning to home to Palmdale, which is “a small city in the desert, not much there, but kinda nice, much nicer than Pasadena”.

The plane landed at Los Angeles about thirty minutes ago and we haven’t been allowed off yet. The reason we haven’t been allowed off is because there is a thunderstorm raging outside and the ground staff have refused or have not been allowed to push the metal stair thing towards the plane in case they get struck by lightning.

The Americans on board are fascinated by the lightning, they are videoing it, they are phoning their cousins in New Jersey to tell them about it. One woman is praying and singing the Lords Prayer, she has by the look of her had a few sweet sherries though. Apparently thunderstorms are relatively rare at Los Angeles Airport.

The nice lady next to me asks me why I am not interested in the thunderstorm and I tell her that I live near Dartmoor and that has its very own weather system and that it is in the only place in England where you can ‘guarantee’ to see all four seasons in one day. She writes this down and promises me that she will visit Dartmoor next time she is in the UK.

Eventually the storm subsides and I traipse off the plane, collect my luggage (which is all there) and into the waiting minibus thing which takes me to my hotel room. I check in and the guy behind the desk thanks me for bringing the ‘British Weather with me’. I smile and say ‘No Problem’ and then get to my room, which is pretty small but clean and besides I’m only here for one night because tomorrow my mums cousin Geoff is picking me up and taking me to his home in Sacremento.

I manage to stay awake long enough to find the restaurant and eat a burger – I say burger, its more like half a cow wedged between two bits of bread. Plus I get a free salad and several thousand chips, sorry fries, with it and ‘unlimited soda’.

On the television there is ‘live and uninterrupted’ footage of the ‘storm’ which is bringing chaos to California. The guy on the telly, is standing in what he claims is ‘Flood ravaged Palmdale’ but in reality looks like he is standing in about half an inch of water at best. I politely declined the offer of ‘a drink’ from the two guys at the bar and end (most) of my dinner. I don’t decline the drink because the men are annoying, I’m just tired and wouldn’t be much company I’m only staying awake because I am hyped up on ‘Shirley Temples’.

Then the ‘uninterrupted’ coverage of the weather ends and some men throwing a ball at each other comes on the telly, so I decide that it’s time for bed.

Oh and Gumball, really good as it happens, must mention that to hipster beardy man when I see him next.

By Badger (sorry SWC is over in Guernsey at the time of writing so I am taking over the blog for a few days)

The Aphex Twin is a bit of an International Man of Mystery. A load of stuff has been written about him in the past, some of which is true, some of which he made up. Here though are my favourite eight things about the Aphex Twin, all of which are apparently true. The last one definitely is, because I was there.

1. The Aphex Twin once remixed a track by The Lemonheads which featured nothing but one note from the song which he sped up and repeated for numerous minutes. I have no idea which Lemonheads track it was.

2. The Aphex Twin once agreed to remix a Madonna track on the condition that she did a pig impression on the record. I have no idea which Madonna record it was.

3. The Aphex Twin remixed a Craig David track ‘just to annoy him’. It was ‘7 Days’ the one in which David boasts about shagging for three days a week.

4. The Aphex Twin drives a tank.

5. The album ‘Selected Ambient Works 85 – 92 contains piece of music recorded by The Aphex Twin when he was 12 years old. One of the brothers from Global Communications (Tom or Ben Middleton) claims to have witnessed this.

6. Aphex Twin once replaced the sound of a synthesizer on his record for the sound of him scratching stuff with ‘sandpaper’ – people liked it, unsurprisingly. Hipsters mainly I would have thought.

7. The Aphex Twin used to live in a bank. It was opposite Ministry of Sound at Elephant & Castle. It has since been demolished and it was a former bank, not a working one, that would have just been daft.

8. I saw him play a gig underneath the site of an old prison in London. A prison where they basically executed people from stealing bread. Oh and it was Halloween, did I mention that.

One last one – The Aphex Twin is a fecking genius.

Here are the top Five tracks by Aphex Twin as played by Ipod.

1. XMD 5a – Which is taken from his ‘Chosen Lords’ album in which you get tracks by him working as Aphex Twin and his alter ego, the most techno inspired, Afx.

2. Batine Acid – which is from the same album and is him working as Afx, obviously you can see the differences in styles?

3. Untitled – Which is actually Track One from Selected Ambient Works Vol 2 and this version is remixed by Four Tet, so pretty much not an actual Aphex Twin track at all. Stupid iPod.

4. Digeridoo – Which is bloody tremendous in far too many ways to go into right now.

5. Green Calx – Which is taken from Selected Ambient Works Vol 1 and I am unsure if its the track recorded by the Twin when he was twelve.

This creeps into the Britpop bracket both musically and by its release date. I also want to talk about it because it reminds me about the time I volunteered to be hypnotised by a dog.

I am in a big hall, there is about a couple of hundred people inside and we are all here to see a man called Hugh who claims that his dog has special hypnotic powers. He (the dog) is called Oscar.

Hugh is a strange man, he claims that dogs and other animals, particularly the meat eating ones can, by process of a natural ability, hypnotise prey. I am a massive disbeliever of hypnosis.

We applaud Hugh on the stage and the women all ‘coo’ at his dog, he is lovely, a black Labrador, with big soppy eyes (with which he hypnotises people, obviously). Hugh gives us a bit of spiel and then he says it.

“Of course, Oscar cannot hypnotise everyone, you have to want to be hypnotised for it to work”. Then a pause. “That or an utter idiot…Now do we have any volunteers”.

Now, I am wearing a Wonderstuff T Shirt that night, emblazoned across the front is one word….”IDIOT”. I look at the stage and realise that my arm is in the air, I blame the dog.

An hour later, I have had a conversation with my nine year old self, tried and failed to count to twenty because for some reason I cannot say the number seventeen and I kept getting interrupted by a lady next to me because she bursts out laughing every time I say the number twelve. I’ve also pretended to be a sheep and told the audience that I am the pope. None of this is on You Tube, at all. It is still a massive con though.

‘Construction for the Modern Idiot’ was the last Wonderstuff album to be released before their temporary split. The album is in many ways much like their first album ‘The Eight Legged Groove Machine’. It is much album less folky than ‘Never Loved Elvis’ and ‘Hup’ with a lot of the fiddles, mandolins and accordion that seemed to be bloody everywhere on the second and third albums buried deeper into overall sound. Allowing the band to revert back to their more guitar based roots. The result was a Top Five Album that spawned three hit singles.

On The Ropes – which went Top Ten and is probably my favourite Wonderstuff track.

Then the band perhaps sensing that they were on a downward spiral, called it a day. Miles Hunt formed a band called Vent 414 (who were just kind of ok) for a bit – before they reformed a few years back.